A Confederation, A Citadel, and a Commander
by Tabac Iberez
Summary: nuXCOM/ME When LTC Shepard is called back to duty after admin leave, he doesn't expect anything serious. Certainly not an assignment to Citadel space, his own independent command, or discovering that the diffrence between geting told something and learning about it are as different as cake and pie. Between inter-species screwups and politicos at home, things are gonna get hairy.
1. Glossary

A Glossary Of Terms

(A/N: Skip this bit until you see something that makes you go "What the utter fuk is this shite?" Then come here, find what you're looking for, or read the bottom author's note.)

(Now hand-formatted because Upload says "Screw you, Tab Key!)

MECT/MECT-S: Mechanically Equipped Combat Trooper/ Mechanically Equipped Combat Trooper-Ship. A tough unit, the MECT is a combination of large quantities of Meld, adaptive surgery, and a combat-fit mechanical exoskeleton which is designed to be the firepower equivalent of an APC or similar light combat vehicle. Deployed at the platoon level, MECT units in the Palachnia sector are generally armed with a LMG-pattern bolter with SCOPE attachment, a refurbished Carbine-pattern gauss weapon, their class-specific support equipment, and any specialized combat modules. MECT-S units have undergone the same set of modifications as a standard MECT, but for a number of reasons have decided to work with the Navy. MECT-S are generally the more general of the two units, preferring to take over a role in their ship similar to an Executive Officer. Frequently, MECT-S have suffered harm to their bodies locking them into a life-support module, referred to jokingly as the Sarcophagus. Unlike MECTs, MECT-S are always ranked Warrant Officer or are commissioned, as they fill a role enlisted personal are not prepared for. Should a MECT-S need to defend their ship, they will either control the ship's anti-boarder measures, such as adjusting gravity, atmosphere, and hatches; or they will mount into a light combat exoskeleton carrying standard infantry weapons.

HEAT/HESH: High Explosive Anti-Tank/High Explosive Shaped Head. HEAT rounds are meant to form a jet of super-fast particulate created by an explosion to cut through armor. To do this, a hollow lined with copper or tin and surrounded by explosive is made, with the majority of the explosive behind the hollow. When the round detonates, the copper is particularized and forced into a super-fast stream, slicing through the target's armor. HESH rounds, by contrast, do not penetrate the target, but instead deform to create a mounded disk on the target before detonation. When this mounded disk explodes, it creates a compression wave until it hits a different material, wherein some of the stress is reflected back as a tension wave. When this happens, an incredible strain is emplaced, spalling or tearing apart armor or completely collapsing an eezo or biotic shield.

Wardroom: The officer's main meeting room, which doubles as mess, breakroom, and as a surgery if a designated medical room is not available. Generally just forward of the officer quarters.

Commissioned Officer: An officer who holds their position by commission, a formal governmental statement for them to hold the position that they do. The Commissioned rank table is as such, with higher ranks listed above lower ones. Equivalent ranks are evenly placed.

Non-Commissioned Officer: An enlisted, or hired member of the armed forces, who has been specifically given their position.

Warrant Officer: An officer who holds a warrant, which outlines his rights and duties. Outranked by commissioned officer, yet hold rank over non-commissioned officers. This rank set is normally given to MECT-S, yet any significantly important non-commissioned officer might become one if their work or specialty demands it. Frequent Warrant Officer posts are ship's pilots (not to be confused with boat pilots or coxswains), heads of any ship's department, and specialists of all types.

Coxswains: Anyone who handles a ship's parasite craft. These people service these vehicles, command them, and are ultimately responsible for them.

Table of Ranks

(Higher ranks to top, lower to bottom. Ranks on same level are equivalent even if they have different names.)

(A/N: +_+_+ pattern is to fill space because HATES my petty attempts to format a table. Mph. Semper Paratus, you silly document system! )

Army_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+ Navy_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_ Commissioned Ranks

Marshal of the Army_+_+_+ Marshal of the Navy

General_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+ Admiral

Lieutenant General_+_+_+_ Vice Admiral

Major General_+_+_+_+_+_ Rear Admiral

Brigadier General_+_+_+_+ Commodore

Colonel_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_ Captain

Lieutenant Colonel_+_+_+_ Commander

Major_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_ Lieutenant Commander

Captain_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+ Lieutenant

First Lieutenant_+_+_+_+_+ Lieutenant, Junior Grade

Second Lieutenant_+_+_+_+ Ensign

Army_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+ Navy_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_ Non-Commissioned/Enlisted Ranks

Sergeant Major_+_+_+_+_+_ Master Chief Petty Officer

First Sergeant_+_+_+_+_+_+_ Senior Chief Petty Officer

Master Sergeant_+_+_+_+_+_ Chief Petty Officer

Sergeant First Class_+_+_+_+_ Petty Officer First Class

Staff Sergeant_+_+_+_+_+_+ Petty Officer Second Class

Sergeant_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_ Petty Officer Third Class

Corporal_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_ Spacer

Private First Class_+_+_+_+_+ Spacer Apprentice

Private Spacer Recruit

(A/N: This list will be update as people ask questions. Please, please, PLEASE ask questions. The only dumb question is one I already answered. I'm already checking my science out against high school freshmen to make sure it makes sense to them- I can't dumb this stuff down and still keep this story from becoming an infodump extraordinaire. One of the first writing lessons I learned was to always write to the lowest common denominator. If you have to PM me three hundred questions that I don't have written here yet, I DON'T MIND. I'm just working to make the common denominator a little higher, is all.)


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Of disasters and databases

Sitting at the semi-public terminal in the XCOM recruiting office on Nova Minsk, Shepard rolled his shoulders and thought back over the last few months. His stay on Nova Minsk had been quite good, and he'd picked up the local dialect fairly easily. Either way, his one hundred and eight days of administrative leave had gone up in a pleasant plume of fine tobacco smoke, and it was time to get back to the grind. So here he was, sitting in a chair next to a terminal that would bear a close resemblance to a dead Cyberdisc if it didn't hurry up…

"Database accessed. Please input your name and service ID"

Trying to relax, Shepard punched in his name and number with a practiced air. As the machine clunked along obligingly, he walked off to get a cup of coffee. Returning, he grinned at the password screen. Inputting the thirty character long string of gibberish, he sighed as he sipped the warm brew. He had to be honest- aggies always had the best food and drink of all the places he'd ever been, even if the tech was always slower than a lamed rookie. Suddenly, a red light went off. Reading to himself, Shepard leaned back and groaned. The magical words "data packets lost in transmission" had come up, and it was time to get to the most annoying job in the known universe: re-entering data. Each member of XCOM had a hard copy of their basic file, and when crap like this happened- which was distressingly frequent, even in the Home Reach- the standby was to break out the paper and provide the basics while IT support played find-the-downed-node-and-fix-it. As Shepard pulled out the hallowed hardcopy, though, the screen threw up a much rarer and annoying message.

"Warning. Data corruption detected."

Grumbling, Shepard took a long pull at his coffee and got ready to do the quick-n-dirty version they used when there was data corruption. The catch was, it sucked. Bad. Not in the nature of the forms, but in the fact anything ten light-years from corrupted data got tagged for investigation by the White Hats. Which meant Shepard would be bit in the ass a year from now when they finally got around to noticing the fact that he had blown a hundred and eight days of admin leave on a backwoods aggie world where they couldn't muster him up for something at the drop of a pin. At any one of a dozen sanctioned R&R facilities, they could snatch a guy in nothing flat if something came up. Out here, it had taken a week to deliver the summons, even with Hypercom. Probably didn't hurt he was nowhere near any of the R&R planets, though.

Said quick-n-dirty form was incredibly crude. A multiple-choice menu for preservice history, a couple of dropdowns on where exactly you came from; a menu that asked for any particular service highlights or traits, and then the oft-joked Class Specification Menu.

"Let's see…" Shepard said, mumbling. "Preservice. Mph. Battle brat, those REMFs might as well make it the default. Bases… Cydonia, Charon, Feraxis, Novo Brazil, Chesapeake. Carriers… New Cydonia, Volunteer's Gift, Von Zeppelin, Ares. Stations… Calais, Hiroshima, Fortuna. Service highlights… LTC, served on the Baldur…"

Shepard's voice trailed off as he thought of the next thing to put on the form. XCOM wasn't a miser with admin leave, but you needed a damn good reason to get it. A hundred and eight days wasn't a gift for inventing a new widget or bringing home a wounded squadmate.

"Survived Braddock's Reach disaster aboard XWS-73, El Regalo de Jesus."

Breathing out quietly, Shepard sped on. Three and a half months hadn't buried those memories too deep, and they still got him up in a cold sweat with one hand on his plasma pistol some nights. He had healed some though. Hopefully enough.

"Combat Classification: Sniper, Infiltrator training, Psionic. 700 hours in enclosed areas combat. 2000 hours in ship combat areas. 75 hours in naval engagements." Eighty three days in the guts of El Regalo de Jesus. 29 days' worth of combat. Spirit of the Commander, he had trained as a sniper. A goddamn sniper who specialized in killing people at dozens or hundreds of meters using the best tech XCOM had to offer, generally against the best tech the bastards on the other side could grab. And then, eighty-three days in the tunnels and shafts of a battlecruiser with a battered laspistol and improvised shotgun. God certainly had a sense of humor, he supposed. At least he knew his psionics were up to standards, though. No doubt about that.

"Profile Reconstruction completed. Please confirm all data entry."

Shepard pressed yes without any hesitation. Duty called, and this wasn't worth quitting for.

In a council chamber, three voices were talking quietly. When the fate of a very good junior officer was on the line, it paid to be careful.

"Well, what about Shepard?" one of the men, Ambassador Udina asked. "Grew up on ships, right?"

"Both his parents were Espatiers and Navy, respectively." Captain Anderson stated, calmly. "Good record on both of them, and both families go back to the Ethereal War."

"What about the disaster at Braddock's Reach?" Admiral Hackett said, snorting. "He was on El Regalo de Jesus if the logs are good."

"More importantly, he survived. For three month, in a drifting hulk overrun by Chryssalids. He trained as an Infiltrator, and lived through a disaster that killed every Espatier on board, plus two full London-class landing crafts going in hot. He only got out by firing himself out in a lifeboat aimed directly at the third London going in. If nothing else, he can and will survive." Captain Anderson said, almost proud. "I saw it myself during the rescue mission."

"Still," Udina stated. "Is this the kind of person we want protecting the galaxy?"

Anderson's response was flat. "We learned that one man can never carry the entirety of the load. There is no one, singular, hero. There is only the leader of heroes. That's the kind of man who can protect the galaxy. And to lead heroes, you have to be a hero yourself."

Udina acquiesced. "I'll make the call."

In the early 2005, Earth was invaded by a coalition of hostile aliens, led by the Ethereals. By 2006, the Etheraels and their servitors had been repulsed, leaving behind marvels of technology in excess of anything of anything developed on Earth. With this massive influx of technology, humanity managed to colonize their own solar system in record time. In 2035, during an geological dig on Mars, the ancient remains of another spacefaring race were discovered, prompting a fusion between the two alien technology bases that ended with man's place firmly entrenched upon the stars. The technology they found on Mars was incredable, resulting in the reworking of hundreds of theories. Laymen thought it was a miracle. The rest of the galaxy called it Mass Effect.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Enter the Normandy

Sitting on the tram out to docking berth #42 on Novo Brazil Space Base, Shepard looked down for a minute at his BDU hardsuit. It was up to date, and showed all his assorted wards and merit badges, but it didn't tell the story behind them. The PSI pin didn't mention the pain of losing your formation leader to plasma, back on Torredor. An Expert Marksmanship badge didn't tell someone there was this hot little piece who'd put out to anyone who could out-shoot her at Metz, or the case of clap that had followed. A Valkyrie's Steed didn't show the blossoming fields of ack-ack painting the sky as he flew in with a doomed rescue mission to extract the last of the 409th from the civil war on Alessandria, or the feeling of despair when he reached the cruiser above to learn that his passengers were dead from the hold getting depressurized from enemy shrapnel. Shepard had been to some bad places, and he had come back from every one. Naval Landing Forces tended to do that, after all.

Courtesy of the fact that when XCOM went into the void it also went public, politicos had jumped on the bandwagon of opportunity with both feet and lobbyists. The Army was, thank god, where most of the civil service was stuck courtesy of the way XCOM gathered its troops, while the Navy had to fight the good fight with corporations over their hardware and building techniques. As a way to create a force that could complete their objectives without outside interference, both groups had set up an out to put their best into. For the Army, the Espatiers served as Army heavy infantry backed up by the reliable and powerful Navy supply chain, able to deploy in division strength with barely a week's notice. For the Navy, the Naval Landing Forces learned their trade from the Army and equipped from them, and returned to guard and establish vital links in the supply line and defend ships from boarders with the expertise of seasoned ground combatants. Both the NLF and Espatiers respected each other, although there was a friendly rivalry over the fact they had to work together so much.

Shepard was a member of the later of the two, and over his fifteen-year record, he had deployed into hot zones for seven campaigns. In contrast, the Army norm was three and Navy was four for an officer of his rank and years. He had enough war time under his belt to not even bat an eye at what was going to happen, no matter how odd- or so he thought.

Reaching the berth, Shepard had to stare at the frigate docked there. A crewmember, Coxswain PO2 if Shepard read the tabs right, grinned at him.

"Ain't she a beauty?" the enlisted asked, grinning at the ship.

"It's a frigate." Was Shepard's flat response.

"So?"

"The last frigate I sailed on was my mid's cruise. It hadn't been refit in thirty years."

"Well, this isn't a midshipman's frigate. This baby's the SR-1 Normandy."

"And?"

"All due respect sir, what hole in the ground did they drag you from?"

"Nova Minsk, after a third of a year in admin leave. Relax."

"Welp… that'll do it. You know where we're headed?"

"Some hole-in-the-void colony called Eden Prime, by way of 'Citadel Space', whatever that means."

The coxswain looked at him, and blinked.

"Shit sir, you sure you're supposed to be here? This is practically diplomatic posting!"

"Says so on the orders."

"And you know nothing about the Citadel species, either?"

Shepard creased his brow in surprise.

"Nope. There was supposed to be a set of eyes-only hardcopies in my mailbox as inbrief, but no, management here can't print classified docs…"

The Po2 laughed, and stuck out his hand.

"Name's Joker, sir. Joker Morreu, PO2 Cox for the SR-1 Normandy."

Shepard shook his hand, and smiled.

"LTC John Shepard, NLF field commander for whatever we can squeeze into a frigate."

"Oh, you'd be surprised, sir."

Sitting in the wardroom with the captain, a man named Anderson, Shepard scratched his head at the briefing he had been given.

"Sir, if you'll excuse me, this is nuts."

Anderson smiled a little at this, looking at the NLF officer carefully.

"I mean… I'm NLF, sir. We're not parade troops, and if I read the roster right, we're going to have a platoon of us on here and a squad of Espatiers on loan indefinitely. This makes no sense. This ship is, to be frank, smaller than a company-level dropship, under-gunned, and is expected to hold enough battle-ready troops to take any space station known to Man. Why?"

Anderson thought for a minute before replying.

"This ship, as you so put it, has three things going for it that were put in from the keel up. One, she's built along the Citadel battle plan. We're talking people here who think Frigate-Cruiser-Dreadnought. This ship blends in. Two, she's a sneak-bird. Think SR-71 levels of sneak. She doesn't need guns with as big a gas pedal she has. Third, which you honestly were supposed to get but Novo Brazil has no printers, is the fact that we're the Badger Works crew for all of Citadel Space."

Shepard whistled. Badger Works was the de facto name for an independent command with political ramifications and zero oversight. Mostly it was handed out to exploratory teams who were hunting down garden worlds, but it was rarely handed out when a group had to facilitate a return to the fold of some far-away colony that had been launched before Hypercom was a thing. For a group to get Badger Works dealing with anything else…

"For pro forma reasons, we're running a shell game here. The Palachnia systems have agreed to open themselves up and join the Citadel as a client race, and we are their representatives, among other items. The long-range plan is to use this ship and crew as a mole. If everything works, we can reveal the existence of the rest of humanity eventually. If it doesn't, and things go belly-up, Palachnia is going to go to a war footing independently while we evac off their transit loop. This has been a running Badger Works project under Admiral Hackett, and we're one of his few requisitions."

Shepard nodded mutely. Secret Squirrel time, with a side of black ops. There went any plans to get married back on Nova Minsk for the next couple of years. Speaking up, he asked an important question.

"I get the shell game aspect here, but how much tech are we letting out of the bag? Plasma's obviously a no-go, but what about lasers? Equally importantly, can we get Carapace chicken plate, or just hardsuits?"

Anderson grinned. "This is why I love working with NLF. You guys hate getting involved with crap outside your bailiwick. Answer is yes for lasers and carapace, plus MELD is also available. Titan and Archangel is a no-go, but we've got organic replacements. MECTs and SHIVs are likewise available, although you're only getting Wardens and Alloys there."

Shepard laughed. "Truth to tell, that's a fairly good gear list. I'd love to see the organic replacements you mentioned. About the only time I ever get to see a Hover or Paladin is when some bigwig needs a guard or a ride. Sir, I think this is going to go just fine, seeing as you know how to keep the shooters like me happy."

(A/N: I sometimes as an architect, and the Normandy's internal layout nearly gave me an apoplexy. So a take it to a naval architect buddy, and he goes apeshit. Therefore, cannon layout is NOT a thing here. As a last point, I happened to pay attention in Econ and Science class, so XCOM's habitual case of Biggest Gun isn't going to be much of a thing. There's a reason single cell organisms tend to stay small- too much space to maintain. XCOM and the Confederacy might not be overstepping their reach yet, but considering the fact they now have to build all their stuff themselves, things have slowed down from the war years.)

(A/N 2: Also, leave reviews. It helps tons.)


	4. Chapter 3

(A/N: One of my little sins as a writer is going on a left-hand tangent in regards to tech. Instead of having to re-write this schmitd later, though, I'm leaving it up in all it's demi-saker glory. {Also, a dedication to whoever spots the joke there.} Chapter Three for real will come soon, with the word soon as defined by Valve.)

Tech Break 1: Molotov's versus Napalm versus White Phosphorus

Looking over the armory on the Normandy, Shepard pursed his lips quietly. When he heard the words "laser weapons and Alloy plate", this was not what he had in mind. And while most "organic replacements" happened to at least resemble what they substituted for, this... this was weird. Very, very weird. Looking for the armorer, Shepard ran his head over his scalp and thought evil thoughts about Hypercom, printers, and pencil-pushers. Upon finding the man, he looked flatly at him, and got right down to business.

"Armorer, can we speak frankly?"

"Sure, El-Te-Ce."

"NLF- style frank here."

"You're confused, aren't you?"

"In the pithy words of my first master gunnery sergeant, 'The fuck is this shit?' end quote."

"Yep. Need an explanation?"

"Spirit of the Commander, yes."

"Alright, grab the problem kit and take it to the firing range. This is going to be interesting."

Nodding, Shepard got a gun crate, and started loading it. Several weapons of three styles went in there, along with ammo. By the time he got to the firing range, the armorer was suited up, and a generic Muton target was downrange. After a quick look in the crate, the armorer whistled.

"You're either really thorough or really new to Palachnia Station."

Shepard's response was a bit testy. "I'm nearly four months behind after admin leave in the ass end of nowhere. Before that, I was stationed in the Phoenix spread, and that's on the other side of the Reach, past Earth."

"Gotcha. This was a peaceful area before the current mess with the ETs, so not much forced-draft development."

The slang term for military needs driving economic growth, mostly by the establishment of solar forges, made perfect sense t0 Shepard.

"Alright, but there's still a story buried here."

The armorer nodded, while Shepard took the time to safe his personal arms and clock in the range as in use.

"Yep. When a Charlie Foxtrot with a batch of X-Rays happened, Cydonia got it's catheters in a knot and threw out a Badger Works team to do, quote, 'damage control', unquote. So the genius on the sharp end makes a daring, end-zone, career making play with the help of the local rear admiral. This lunatic presents Palachnia as the one and only place of humanity. Meanwhile, he's shooting this off to Cydonia, who, for some reason, loved it. Then, said rear admiral has to beat off an attack, but Badger-Boy manages to parlay it over to our political and military bosses as a win. Afterwards, Palachnia starts what we natives like to describe as the Interstellar Shell Game, abbreviated to ISG. Citadel knows about half of what we've got- specifically, everything on a Relay. Everything else, meanwhile, is secretly pushing in enough stuff to let us quietly wage a trade war. Catch is, we're right next to the Verge and Terminus, both of which are PC terms for lawless hive of scum and villainy. So we proxy the hell out of those pits, which keeps us afloat while the damn Asari and Volus try and drown us in cash-cow mercantilist bullshit."

Shepard nodded approval. "I get it. And let me guess- right now our trademarked and trade locked weapons made of weird-ass shit they can't duplicate is helping us hold our own?"

The armorer nodded back. "Yep. This set of weapons here are technically called two-stage gyrojet weapons. For purposes of copywrite infringement, we call 'em bolters."

Shepard's eyebrow went up. "Somebody likes 40K."

"Shh- the Adeptus Cervisa might hear."

"That bad?"

"Let me put it this way. Never, ever, say the words 'Bellator in Machina." Ever. Or else…

"I HEARD THAT!" A voice came in over the ship's speakers, tinged with the faintest of Euro accents.

"Goddamnit Roland, I was just telling the El-Te-Ce how to get your attention!"

"Sorry, Cachet. Automated sub-routine." The same voice replied, mollified. "You know how it is."

"Rolland, eh?" Shepard said, grinning. "Please say you're Norwegian."

"Yes…" Rolland said, suspicion in his voice.

"His comrades fought beside him, Van Owen and the rest,"

"Goddamnit." Was Rolland's only response.

"But of all the Thompson gunners, Rolland was the best."

"Cachet, my automatic recorder is on, and I can't turn it off. Shut him up, please!"

"So the CIA decided, they wanted Rolland dead."

"Cachet, shoot a gun, drown him out, somehow!"

"That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen blew off Rolland's head."

When Cachet the armorer stopped crying from laughter, he wiped his eyes.

"It's been too long since anyone managed to make that trope-overdosed MECT reject shut up." Cachet said, still holding his side.

Roland harrumphed. "I am ignoring you. Hear me and see me ignore you."

Cachet just laughed again. "Back to business. Anyway, bolters. Pack a kick, most of 'em are loaded with HESH rounds, which really fuck with infantry. Rule of thumb is double-tap. One for the shield, one for the suit. Minimum arming distance is thirty meters, fifteen for pistols. Max range for the pistol shells is five hundred meters, max for rifle is one thousand, while snipers and LMGs can eke out fifteen hundred. Any secondary uses the pistol shell, while all the primaries feed rifle shells excepting the sniper rifle and LMG, which feed the same oversized bolt. Marksman's rifles can cross-load with snipers, but you need to run the action manually for that. Trajectory is really screwy, but scopes for them have a handy little aim ring once you lock a target. No scope, best range is about a hundred to two hundred meters. With, and you can generally walk your shots home for about three-quarters of the max range. Don't ever shoot them in vacuum, by the way- these beasts drip lube, and it isn't the good stuff. Want to try one?"

Shepard raised an eyebrow, and nodded. Picking up the assault rifle bolter, he looked over to Cachet who nodded.

"Range is hot! Check left, check right, check range! Shooter, ready!"

Shepard belted back. "Ready!"

"You may load, and commence firing until your magazine is dry!"

Loading one magazine of green-tipped training rounds, Shepard came to firing position and began shooting single shots. Each round kicked like a mule, and dipped in flight at about ten meters before the rocket was at full burn. Once it was, though, it flew fairly straight until it hit the backstop, where a VR representation carried on until the round went ballistic and crashed into the simulated ground or the Muton. Five rounds in, he switched to two-round bursts, and winced at the dispersion and the beastly kick. Finally, he slung the strap over his shoulder and tried hip fire at full auto. Sweet Spirits that was a bad idea! When the action locked back, Shepard cleared the rifle and put it on the table, rotating his shoulder.

"Range is clear." Cache said, closing the firing lines.

"I take it MECTs have a love affair with these?"

Cachet nodded. "LMG as the main, and dual SMGs over the shoulders. They normally use 'em because without Elerium batteries, they can't afford to carry much railgun ammo. Plus, the LMG can cross-load rifle rounds without any modifications due to the way the bolt and headspacing work."

Shepard snorted, unsurprised at the general message. "I get that. What about these gauss weapons?"

"These are a whole 'nother kettle of fish. They were introduced back in the Ethereal War as an anti-armor concept weapon, and they were really good at that. The catch was, once some bright spark figured out pulse lasers, they were shelved while all the old laser hardware got remade into the much deadlier version. We dug 'em out so for compare and contrast reasons against the Citadel's sidearms, which are fairly similar. The idea hit production, though, when some smart Quarian figured out how to mesh together our accelerators with their batteries. After that, some investors got together and kicked out a few good designs. They're mostly civilian weapons, but more than a few of the local PMCs use them as heavy assault gear and dedicated siege weapons. Plus, the made by humans factor is a bit of a pull, too. Turns out somebody else has figured out that having low-lifespan, easy-to-replace items can make a fast buck. We stopped that crap a long time ago, and even the guys who don't use our stuff know that we honor any warranty backed up with a receipt and the item in question. If shit hits the fan or you need a deniable weapon, these are your go-to kit. The fact they also happen to be fairly forgiving guns helps, too."

Shepard set one on the bench, and gave it a thorough look-over. "I'm familiar enough with these. Got shot at enough with one variation or another over the years, so they're all the same to me."

Cachet grinned. "So you figure these for a bunch of A.K.A-47s, then?"

Shepard snorted. "I doubt it. Remember, got shot at by them before. I'm sure there are good ones and bad ones in the gun pool. That said, there has to be one Saturday Night Special piece among them"

"Too true, my smarter-than average officer friend." Cachet said as he pulled out a black and red rifle that looked like nothing more sophisticated than a drop hammer had been used in building it. Passing it and a clip of ammo over, he nodded at the target. "Take her for a spin."

"Alright." Shepard said, nodding.

"Range is hot! Check left, check right, check range! Shooter, ready!" bellowed Cachet, again.

Shepard belted back. "Ready!"

"You may load, and commence firing until your magazine is dry!"

The first set of shots wasn't nearly as accurate as the bolter's, and it only got worse from there. By the time the clip was empty, Shepard had a frown firmly emplaced, and stared at the gun with disgust. Clearing it, he almost slammed it on the table.

"Range is clear." Cachet said, ending that test fire.

"Welp, this thing's a piece of shit." Shepard said with finality.

"Yep," Cache said, smiling, "But it isn't crappy next to the Citadel guns. This is the AK-47 of our gun industry, and it matches up fairly evenly with their service rifles- which are not the bottom of their gun pile. Take this one," he said, passing over a dull gray model built on similar lines. "And give her a try."

Clearing it, Shepard noted the much better manufacture. "Alright."

"Range is hot! Check left, check right, check range! Shooter, ready!"

Shepard roared back. "Ready!"

"You may load, and commence firing until your magazine is dry!"

Putting a magazine that was an exact copy of the first, Shepard started off with slow, aimed shots. Unlike the previous one, this one shot straight as a laser, had a much lighter recoil, and half the report. Contrary to the appearances, though, the gun's rounds were preforming almost exactly like the ones from the other gun in penetration and velocity. Emptying the mag, Shepard stared at the piece of lethal equipment in his hand.

"Range is cold." Cachet said, grinning. "This gun better?"

"Infinitely…" Shepard said in awe. "This thing is so much better than that piece of shit."

"And that's the difference between the original and the knockoff. You can't accurate this platform much, but the originals from Grumman are incredibly potent. The big disadvantage to gauss is that they generally fall prey to crippling overspecialization. Incidentally, this is also the Army's standard weapon here."

"Wow. Those things are on par with most of the laser rifles we've been arming Army regiments with. Any major hang-ups?"

"Batteries are integral to the magazine, so the bat light can read full on an empty mag. Gun's own battery fuels the scope and standby on the rails, so don't leave a mag in while she's not likely to be used. Last, make sure any specialty ammo checks out clean with the gun. Our service rifles can feed some ammos PMCs can't, and vice versa."

Shepard nodded, repacking the gauss rifles. "So, show me to the lasers."

Cachet pulled out one of the laser rifles, and placed a battery pack next to it on the table. "Mk. II-C Beam Laser Rifle. Seventy-five in the mag, standard shot time is point-two-five of a second. Integral cooling, no heat sinks. Take her for a spin."

Picking up the gun, Shepard waited for Cachet to call he range cadence. He did, and Shepard loaded and fired. After a fairly mediocre set of shooting, Shepard looked over the gun carefully. "Alright, this has about as much similarity to an X-19 as a hawk to a handsaw. What gives?

Cachet replied back carefully. "Beam time. X-19 and her sister guns are built on a pulse model. This is beam. On both, you get the same length of beam time. The difference is that the II-C is DC, and as such has one steady beam. X-19 is AC, and as such the beam pulses like crazy. The pulsing increases thermal shock on target, wound depth, and armor penetration. Think of it as the difference between a hydraulic press and a jackhammer. In an Elerium power pack, we can fit the AC converter fairly easily. In a conventional Nine-Three-Five power pack, the addition wouldn't fit, and a rifle-mounted converter would cause overheating that makes Citadel rate of fire per minute look good. You can cause a lot of damage with an II-C, but it's hard. Most of our current laser arsenal is anti-armor and anti-entrenchment."

Shepard put the gun down, and stuck out his hand. "Thanks. I believe we didn't get to the formal introductions bit. John Shepard, LTC in charge of our NLF and Espatiers compliments."

Cachet nodded, and shook his hand. "PO2 Vincent Cachet, late of Erbon, armorer for the Normandy. Putting your home planet or station as a sort of surname is fairly common here, so I would politely suggest using it."

"Thanks. Any common planets?"

"Most common home for spacers is Novum Sculptura. If you use that, you may want to add in an education at St. Barret's. For aggies it's Aragon or New Haven."

"Again, thank you."

"No problem. You might want to make sure any other supplementary materials are in, plus your Codex. They're probably here, but this station has really fragile communications, and we're not going to have many opportunities to go off the grid once we set out."

"Alright. See you for outfitting later, Cachet."

"You too, sir."


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 3: What's in a plan?

It was around four hundred hours when a slight rumbling echoed throughout the ship. Cracking a bleary eye, Shepard dragged himself upright and checked the clock. The numbers on it were not happy numbers, much to his disappointment. Rolling out of bed, he started suiting up instinctively, almost belting on his laspistol before he remembered the Citadel space weapons regs. Grumbling, he dropped it in a small drawer, and pulled on the beam laser instead. Now fully suited, Shepard started down the hall to the officer's wardroom. Moving over to the public full-ship terminal, he threw a query to Roland. The ship-MECT's response was near instantaneous, flavored with a bit of a chuckle.

"Good morning, LTC Shepard."

"Rolland, there is no such thing as a good morning when it is oh-four-hundred and you get woken up off watch. Seeing as you're talking to me in person, that means whatever that bump was is fairly unimportant."

"Point, sir, point. We just docked, and the visiting Spectre will be arriving aboard at ten-hundred hours."

"Very good, Rolland. Personal question, though- what rank are you?"

"Warrant Officer 1st Class. Right now, it would effectively be a demotion to accept any commission less than LTC, and they don't get to do nearly as much fun stuff."

"Really."

"Yep. Whenever I have silly thoughts about accepting a commission, I remember how many of terabytes of paperwork I have dodged over the years by being a lowly Warrant."

"Good to know, Roland."

"Alright. Although, could I ask why you joined the NLF? I have never carried them, and I am curious."

Shepard grabbed a chair, and sat down. This question was one that would take a little bit of work.

"Well, I'm sure you can tell I was a battle brat, born and raised. The Navy was in my blood after the amount of time I spent on the _Volunteer_ -class supercarriers, but infantry war was my bread and butter." Shepard began, warming up. "That said, Naval Landing Forces looked good on paper. Then, when my family was on Nambia…"

Shepard took a breath, calmly.

"I don't know if you know this, but most of our first-wave, questionable-survival colonies sent out on Rip-shots were settled by religious extremists. It got them out of everyone's hair. Just pack them up in a drop-pod, strap it to a Wormhole Drive on a non-atmospheric cargo hauler, Rip it out, and have it wormhole home sans colonists. Check on the site in a year, and throw more settlers there if everything worked out. One of those colonies was Damascus. Damascus was one week by wormhole drive to Nambia, and the Damascenes were fanatics of the first order. They raided right in the middle of our leave, and were barely driven off. That's when I learned two things. One, NLF was the group that was covertly responsible for disciplining the splinters. Two, Damascus was a repeat offender, and had forsworn their Charter. I signed on to the NLF when I turned sixteen, trained for eighteen months, and was right in time to witness one of the first Chrysalid Strikes followed by fusion lance orbital bombardment. When the NLF left, the planet was a glasshouse with 'lids crawling over the remains. I saw two years there as we evacuated the planet's moderates between glassings, and have killed more 'lids than I care to remember. After that… I never put in a transfer or request for leave until the _Regalo de Jesus_."

Roland whistled quietly.

Shepard shrugged quietly. "I joined a long time ago. I keep saving up my leave time so that if something ever rattles me badly, I can take some time off even if the boys over me in the ladder don't like it. Probably have a few years piled up by now."

"Four hundred days even." Rolland replied, a tinge of smile is his synthesized voice. "Now go to sleep, Shep. Big day tomorrow."

"Too true," Shepard said with a yawn. "Goodnight, Rolland."

"Good night, Lieutenant Commander."

Waking up when he was supposed to this time, Shepard pulled on his uniform. The Spectre had already been piped aboard according to his tablet, and he figured that by the hum of the mass effect core that they had already gotten underway. Once again, on went the beam laspistol, and for show his boarding hatchet went across from it. Most Espatiers and NLF carried some form of boarding melee weapon as a just in case measure, as hitting dry magazines in the middle of a cramped hall was a death sentence. Checking the speed-release magnetic locks, Shepard smiled. Nobody had ever described him as remotely xenophobic, but you only needed to duel an illegal and drugged-up Berserker with only a boarding hatchet and your psionics once to never want to go unprepared again. Leaving his quarters, he started heading down to the bridge. As he approached, Shepard heard Joker's mumbling as he went through a post-jump checklist.

"Thrusters… check. Navigation… check. Internal heat sink… check. All systems online. Drift… under 1500 k."

Behind him, the Turian Specter muttered quietly. "1500 is good. Your captain will be pleased."

Approaching, Shepard stepped heavier on his right steps than his left- an old way to warn someone you were coming politely.

"I don't know about the captain, but I know I am quite happy with that. Good work, Joker." Turning, Shepard looked over to the Spectre. "John Shepard, Lieutenant Commander. You would be the Spectre, I presume?"

The Turian nodded. "Nihlus Kyrik, SPECTRE. Good to meet you, Lieutenant Commander."

Shepard just nodded, as Joker politely interrupted.

"Excuse me, sirs, but there's a message from the Captain. Mr. Kyrik, he requests your presence in the wardroom."

The Spectre shrugged in a mirror of what any human might have done. "Your Captain calls, Shepard. If this is what I believe it to be, we may be calling for you shortly."

Shepard just smiled faintly.

As Nihlus left, Joker muttered to himself. "I hate that guy." His copilot just laughed. "A Spectre compliments you and you get pissy? No wonder you haven't made it all the way back up to Petty Officer first class!"

"Listen, you zip up your jumpsuit on the way out of a bathroom, great. Good job buddy. You ride a xenos artifact you've never seen before a couple hundred lightyears and hit a target the size of a pin, on your first and only try, now that's fukkin fantastic."

Shepard interrupted flatly. "Stow it. You know the drill, gentlemen. Or do I need to remind you that SR is the hull designation for Dedicated Badger Work?"

Any humor died instantly.

"Yes sir."

Walking away from the bridge, Shepard kept an open ear. Not many of the crew were happy with either the government overseer nor did they like the fact that an alien was, to all intents and purposes, riding shotgun in their new and shiny ship. To tell the truth, Shepard wasn't too happy with the state of affairs himself, but he didn't make those calls. That fell upon different shoulders. All he had to do was figure out what the plan was for him and his.

"Commander Shepard, please report to the wardroom for briefing. I say again, Commander Shepard, please report to the wardroom for briefing."

 _Great…._ Shepard thought. _This just keeps getting better and better…_

Stepping into the wardroom, Shepard rolled his shoulders and got ready to call up his reinforced platoon. Back in the Two-K era, some geniuses in the USA had decided to turn a fast, sneaky submarine (some kind of underwater boat armed with city- and ship- killing weapons, as far as Shepard knew. Silly concept, but they kept building them for some reason. ) into a fast, sneaky submarine armed with elite commandos and whatnot instead of fast, semi-sneaky rockets. The idea was that the commandos got inserted into an area, did whatever they needed to do, and got back on the submarine and left.

Shepard hoped like hell this wasn't what the _Normandy_ had been built to do. Besides the fact that space units were awkward as hell and noisier than a parade in atmosphere, the whole concept of launching munitions while in stealth had died a natural death after tac officers learned that your average nuke fired past the target would illuminate the target from behind, revealing the "stealthy" ship's silhouette. If the Citadel races had jacked themselves into space, they had to have figured out nukes at some point. And if nukes were in play, then somebody would remember the old axiom of "When in doubt, saturation bombing fixes most problems."

As he entered, Shepard noticed that the Spectre was in front of the presentation console, set to a view of some tourist-y planet.

"Hello, Shepard." Nihlus said calmly. "Out of curiosity, what do you know about this planet?"

Shepard walked up, and blinked a few times. Enhanced Depth Perception wasn't worth much here, but it never hurt to try. Besides, it let him dredge a few things out of his memory from the precious hardcopies he had been able to find.

"Just a name. Eden Prime."

"Hmmm…" was the Spectre's response. "You know, this world is widely considered the pinnacle of Human colonization. Far from help, far from your species home on Palachnia. Proof that humanity can brave the terrors of the void without fear."

Inside Shepard's brain, Meld-enhanced memory sprang forth. Specifically, a map. Eden Prime wasn't defenseless- three local stars had human-only solar forges around them, and none of them had ever observed hide nor hair of any observation. Wherever Man had planted down a solar forge, he always made sure it had both communications and defense. They were too critical for everything to allow anything else. The Citadel species must have been too tied to the Relay network, only settling on garden worlds. Silly gits.

"We're a fairly resilient species, Spectre Kyrik. 'He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.' One of our better philosophers said that- Nietzsche, if I remember correctly."

The Spectre seemed to almost savor the quote, almost internalizing it.

"I believe the Citadel has stared far deeper than Humanity would ever care to look, Lieutenant Commander Shepard."

"Then in return, you have been gazed into far deeper than us. Is that a blessing, considering the power your government has entrusted to the hands of a bare few?"

Nihlus smiled ironically.

"And I suppose you have not had this problem before?"

"We have. What Nietzsche left out was that the monster and the abyss are related, but not the same. Besides, what is monstrous as it happens can be wisdom in hindsight, and what can be prudence and pragmatism in the now can be revealed as an act of inhumanity as the cycles pass."

Now it was Shepard's turn to let an old soldier's sardonic wit slip loose.

"The question is, has enough time passed yet to tell?"

At that moment, Captain Anderson walked in.

"Good evening, gentlemen. I hate to cut the discussion short, but it is time we let poor Mister Shepard in on the secret."

"Poor Mister Shepard" snorted in a most un-gentlemanly manor.

"Captain, please leave the diplomat-speak at the door. I'm NLF. Find crap, blow crap up. On a good day, I get a nice, vague set of orders that says 'Win this mess' so I can expand and act to the best of my unit's ability."

Anderson just smiled.

"Alright, then. We're doing a covert pickup, and as you were taught in OBS, the fastest way to find a spaceship is via radiant heat. Thus, the fact that we're using the internal heat sink, which hides our most obvious tell."

What neither mentioned was the fact that all Confederacy warships from hull number four hundred on out had an internal heat sink that dumped spare heat when activated into raw water-based slurry from ice-based asteroids and other space debris that couldn't get fed into a solar forge. Stealth firing wasn't an item of import, but stealth maneuvering was. Considering the fact that the vaporized slurry could be discharged into a lidar- baffling screen once it was saturated with waste heat only made the system better.

Either way, Shepard had to play the ignorant, me-shoot-scumbags subordinate.

"What about radiation from our engines?"

"We're entering the area on a ballistic."

Now Shepard had to whistle. Ballistic entry was _hard_. Add in the amount of time not being under continuous acceleration would add…

Wow.

Nihlus spoke up, cutting off the unrehearsed Barnum and Baily routine.

"We're going in under stealth to recover an artifact. Prothean. Your people dug it out of the ground, and we're taking it back to the Citadel for proper study."

Anderson spoke up, now.

"This is massive, Shepard. The last time we hit something like this, we were catapulted two hundred years, maybe three hundred."

Shepard nodded. The Ethereal tech was superior to a lot of the "pure" eezo tech according to reports, but Man had a lot of trouble making more of it. Finding the Prothean cache on Mars had allowed large-scale solar forges to be created, made the Rip Launch system a viable alternative to the Relays, and allowed the production of nearly all of the technology the Etheraels had brought. As an added bonus, it also made orbital launching cheap- the last remaining barrier between Man and the stars.

"I get it, Captain."

Nihlus butted in.

"With respect, I don't think you realize how far this discovery could stretch. Every species in Council space would be massively affected, if anything useable was recovered."

"Of course, the Beacon isn't the only reason I'm here," Nihlus continued. "I'm also here to overview a Spectre candidate. To writ, you."

"Me." Was all Shepard replied with.

"You're a good soldier, Shepard. Always follow orders to the best of your ability, never expressed dissonance with command, always knows what to do, where to go, and who to ask. However, what put you on the list as a potential candidate was dealing with the Colachan."

Shepard hissed. Colachan was his first campaign as the commander of an independent element. There were… un-fond memories of it.

"How do you know about Colachan?"

Out of sight of Nihlus, Anderson's eyes flashed purple. A voice, dried until it was unrecognizable from eternity, softly slipped into Shepard's mind.

 _We needed to throw him a bone. They wanted a young, veteran officer by their definition. Colachan alone made you one of the premier candidates._

Nihlus never noticed, and continued on.

"We asked for your unsealed record, and the Palachnia Army was overjoyed to deliver it."

 _Never mind the fact that your real record has never entered a non-MECT database._

Shepard just had to laugh a little, now.

"So you're telling me that someone who destroyed nineteen civilian outposts with orbital bombardment, killing in excess of two thousand noncombatants in the act alone, is your prime choice to be above the law."

Anderson stepped forward, and almost slapped Shepard.

"Lieutenant Commander Shepard, there was an inquiry after Colachan. You were absolved of all guilt in the mater. I will not have a decorated officer of the N7 program self-flagellate, especially in front of a damn Spectre!"

Nihlus tried to soothe the mater.

"Captain Anderson, what Mister Shepard just demonstrated is exactly why he is such a valuable Spectre candidate. He has taken responsibility for his actions in full, and regrets the outcome which caused collateral damage. That alone makes him far more suitable than many of the more infamous Spectres of days past."

"And Mister Shepard" Nihlus said smoothly, "you were spotting for a general orbital bombardment. Over three hundred strikes did not hit civilian targets. Post-inquiry, you were even awarded a medal for the precision of your spotting. But we digress from the topic at hand. Eden Prime will be the first of a handful of missions together. If I approve, then you will be sent to the Citadel for formal training, and then officially become a SPECTRE."

Over the intercom, Rolland interrupted the discussion with all the tact of a plasma strike.

"Capitan, we have a problem. Eden Prime is under assault, and they are sending a distress signal."

"Put it on screen."

On the briefing projector, a young tech sergeant tackled her lieutenant to get him out of the way. Moments later over the sound of mass effect rifles and gauss guns, the lieutenant repapered.

"This is Eden Prime PDF Actual! We are under assault, and need immediate evac! Whatever they are, they're everywh-"

A massive snap stopped the young lieutenant's voice in its tracks, and in that moment Shepard knew that poor sod would never live to see his captain's bars. The camera spun wildly, and for a second, a brief second, it showed the assaulting ship. It was massive, a malformed beast whose tentacles dangled like a squid or octopus. It rode the vortex of a storm it was creating with its anti-grav, and every soul who saw it shivered quietly as the cancerous weapon expanded its grasp. The signal cut out straight to snow thereafter.

"Sir, we have no more com signals from Eden Prime. Requesting permission to call down a Broken Arrow."

Anderson had to grab a chair, and sat down heavily.

"Negative, Rolland. Tell Joker we're going in hot and fast. When we reach Palachnia, though, the first thing I want you to do is to send 'Ring the Doom Bells. What was Etherael thought was there is, and now it rises again."

"Affirmative, Captain. Should we signal for assistance to Home?"

"Negative. I think we can handle it until they up their game or summon Cthulu."

Nihlus just snorted at the fairly obscure code that he both recognized as a code and didn't understand.

"Captain, Lieutenant Commander, a small strike team can get in quietly and retrieve the beacon. I suggest air-drops."

Shepard just smiled.

"I suggest orbital drops. We have the pods, Captain. Doesn't look like they can saturate that much airspace."

Anderson grinned a little, now.

"In which case, get your Roughnecks suited up and in their pods, Commander. We have a small long-fall glider Nihlus can use. Don't attract undue attention, but don't be afraid to give them hell."

(AN: Questions? Comments on how to improve? I can be PM'd. Don't be afraid to follow or review either!)


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